cynthiahost Remember the producers? Their broad way musical springtime for Hitler? Well in that play the fictitious Broadway Musical made fun of the Nazi's.Carl Zuckmeyers play,made into a film does this dramatically. It's told form a German view point on why they made this mistake in supporting Hitler.Victor Dekowa has always played kind roles ,when he was working under the real Nazi dictatorship. Now he plays a meaty role .An A-hole, SS Leader Scmidt the worst bad character in this film. Dekowa ,that year ,would play a victim of the Nazi government too.Big Band leader Kurt Widmann. Victor must of been an anti Nazi passive.Would Hienz Ruhmann played the same bad guy if the role was offer to him?I don't know. S.s. leader is spying on Industrialist leader or manager of plane craft ,Harry Harras, played Wonderfully by Kurd Jurgens. He's an alcoholic and lusts women.He parties as much as possible.This is suppose to put the idea that Nazi's were womanizers and drunks.He hates the Nazi party he wishes that he did not have to deal with it.Head of the S.s, is spying on him and catches him while he's drunk.He gets arrested a, like Hans Bruasewetter did for being too open against the Nazis'.He's psychologically torturer in prison for weeks. Then all of a sudden he's let out.Victor claims it was a mistake.Then Kurd discovers it wasn't a mistake when he saw a wink . Then he realizes the truth.Now he has to do something about it.The other cast includes Carl Ludwig Deahl,who is the president of the industrial complex ,I think.His character is secretly Jewish an is involved in the under ground against the Nazis,as it is learned later when he commits suicide with a fellow Jew at the park.Harry Meyens ,who was in Darling of the gods, portrays Lieutenant Hartman, who engage to the presidents daughter, the youngest daughter Waltraut, played by Eva Ingebord Scholz, for whom he gets injured ,later on, so then Kurd can take what it requires to make up for his won mistakes Karl John portrays the Engineer of the air craft company, who wore the same uniform when he worked under the Nazi dictatorship, when he starred in the romantic Two in the city, 1942. Camillia Spira portrayed a opera singer and friend of Harry Hass. She worked under the third Reich too as an actress but had to leave Germany in 1938 cause her father Fritz was Jewish He got murdered in a concentration camp and She and her family were put in one until she lied about being Jewish ,which got her out .Marianne Koch,the youngest actress in the film portrays, Dorothy the niece of Olivia.She's an actress too and falls for Harry.This is from a German view point. The party scene celebrating Haas getting an award ,the Nazi citizens and soldiers, upper officials, are acting like normal humans.They with the women are singing and dancing to their favorite pop songs of the time .It isn't marching music or waltzes neither. If the American film makers were to have made this, they would be portrayed as monsters.Cold.The music would be Waltzes or no music at all.they all be talking about Hitler and their plans to controlled the world so the Nazi character are portrayed as human with imperfections.Would Turner classic movies ever premier this? Coming from the German point of view .I don't know.It's available on d.v.d . still 11/23/12

diebestefrau A movie that I saw for the first time decades ago and numerous times since! Every time I watch it, I discover new facets in Harras'personality. On one hand he is the tough guy, the party animal, the womanizer; however, he shows his softer, almost romantic side when he meets Diddo Geiss. I think that the movie could be a wonderful teaching tool, because it illustrates how "non-political", even rebellious Germans were drawn into the Nazi ideology and paid the ultimate price! Udo Jürgens and Marianne Koch were fabulous together! I would recommend this film for upper level German classes in the US. It is a good addition to "Die weisse Rose" or "Sophie Scholl".

andre-71 This is a tranquil but disturbing film about a disputatious general trying to get along with the Nazi system. And even though the film does not live on action but on good dialogues, its appeal is quite different to that of the theatrical play. The movie is a classic.

hoffmanu The epic of Goethe's "Faust" replayed in real life (Ernst Udet, Generalluftzeugmeister, was the source for Zuckmayer's General Harras), and in a play by Carl Zuckmayer. Displays excellently how Germans were suckered into following the modern day "Pied Piper from Austria": Adolf Hitler; and how you have to pay the piper if you follow him. "Denn wer auf Erden des Teufels General gewesen ist und ihm die Bahn gebombt hat, der muss ihm auch in der Hoelle Quartier machen!" - "For whoever was the Devil's General on this Earth, and who bombed the path for him, also has to be his quartermaster in hell!"